Ship Without a Light
by Ahsurika
Summary: Weeks after Cerberus' attack on the Citadel, Kolyat attends the funeral of a turian who helped him rally the Presidium against the invaders.


**A/N: an alternate take on Cerberus' assault on the Citadel, in which Kolyat plays a prominent role in rallying the Presidium around the Huerta Memorial Hospital.**

* * *

Only six people attended the funeral.

It hurt Kolyat that so few could acknowledge the passing of a life like this one.

A volus, the turian's one-time landlord, as she'd introduced herself during their awkward introduction. He'd lived in her building for well over a year, she'd told Kolyat to fill the empty air. Lived with haunted eyes and resigned shoulders. Paid his meager bills, kept to himself.

Not a bad fellow, the landlord said, sympathy in her modulated tones. A sad one.

The batarian bartender who'd been watching him slowly drink himself into oblivion. It had been his bar in the Upper Wards where the turian had drunk enough ryncol to knock out a krogan the night before Cerberus' assault. It had been him who'd sent the passed-out turian to Huerta instead of the nearby overtaxed refugee center.

Thought the fancy facilities could dry him up, the batarian was saying to nobody in particular in a loud voice. His words sounded harsh, but even Kolyat could see the pensive moodiness that swam behind his four eyes. A businessman who'd lost a good customer and only just now realized the faint fondness that relationship had created.

Others whose presence made less sense: a helmeted turian in high quality armor that shone with the deep blue of Kahje's seas. Special ops, perhaps even a Spectre, though what one of _those_ would be doing here Kolyat couldn't begin to guess, unless it spoke to the dead turian's past. A pair of salarians who kept glancing at Kolyat, murmuring amongst themselves. Kolyat tried in vain to ignore them. He knew what his late father had done for their Councilor - and how much he was coming to look just like the legendary Thane Krios - and he had no right to their obvious fascination.

That was it.

No one else to see the turian sail into the void. No one else to remember what he'd done for the Presidium.

In some ways it was worse than Kolyat's father, the wound of whose passing was still raw in Kolyat's chest. He at least had died at peace, attended by his son and his savior, resting in the quiet of success and the knowledge of redemption. This...

 _Drala'fa. This turian should have a monument in his name._

 _I never even knew his name._

Regret squeezed his heart. These past few weeks he'd been traveling around the Citadel, smiling at cameras, conducting as many interviews as his scorched vocal cords would allow…the turian who'd made it all possible had continued rotting away. Kolyat had been shoved unwilling into the spotlight, and he'd abandoned the nameless sniper who'd watched his back.

 _I searched…I wanted to find him. How could I have failed?_

He'd never once considered that he'd be the only one -

 _~Lights, so many of them I wonder if their heat will dry out my skin. My breath scratches my throat as if in unwanted sympathy. For the next hour, I'm the locus of attention for a hundred people and ten million extranet users. My muscles ache. I'm tired, but I can feel the Citadel's atmosphere, the mood among the inhabitants. They won't let me go, not when so many heroes have perished in the weeks since the Reapers' arrival. They must cling to the living.~_

 _~I'm alone. None of the others are with me. Two of the salarians died and the quarian disappeared, but the others survived. I've seen them, the elcor, the batarian. The third salarian: Inoste, the logistical genius. We couldn't have done it without him, without any of them. I know they should be here, too. Somehow, I've become the face of our team.~_

 _~They call me the Wind of the Wards now, forgetting that the wind was not me, ignoring that I fought in the Presidium and not in the wards at all. Or that it wasn't a battle or a desperate struggle but defiance, a refusal to allow Cerberus to intimidate us into submission. Yet they ignore all but the young drell. They ask me, with smooth voices and hungry eyes, what made me do it. I do not answer immediately. My lungs rattle. They know about my injuries, and so they give me time to reflect, to think about the turian. The spotter; the sniper. He saved our lives several times over. Where is he? Why isn't he by my side?~_

 _~I've seen no interviews, no acknowledgements. I pause long before I respond, feeling the guilt well up. No acknowledgements, even from me. He has nothing. Where is he?~_

 _~Who is he?~_

The door closed quietly.

A roar, and with a surge of fire the turian's body was consumed.

 _Your ship drifts, unknown and forgotten, into the night._

Kolyat stood there for a long time, focusing on the muted crackle of the flames. Ignoring the others, their mumbled and uncertain words, he forced himself to remember the battle, to re-experience pain he was trying so hard to suppress.

He owed his nameless helper that much, at least.

 _~Smoke and ash fill my lungs. I gasp, trying desperately to breathe through the Atlas mech's vaporized remains. Inoste's ingenious fly-by explosives worked brilliantly, but I was too close, and now I'm drowning in dust.~_

 _~Talons close around my flailing wrist. The turian yanks my arm half out of its socket trying to free me, but free me he does. It's nearly three minutes before I can breathe without feeling like my throat is ripping apart. I know at once that it will fully heal only with months of intense hydrotherapy, assuming we survive this.~_

 _~"Come on, kid, breathe. Can't have you dying on me until we've sent Cerberus to the Traverse. I don't have your eye for this."~_

 _~My mind is a haze. Three more alleyways and a staircase just to rejoin Inoste. I cannot linger. Yet I do, because I can't find my feet or my balance - and then the turian lifts me to my feet, strong but surprisingly gentle, his grip firm on my arm._

 _~I open my mouth to thank him, cursory and quick, but when the mind is rattled, the heart speaks instead._

 _~"But your eye is great for other things. We need you."~_

 _~The turian blinks, surprised. "Where did that come from?"_

 _~I don't know, and I tell him such.~_

 _~The alcohol-induced film that had clouded his gaze is almost gone, leaving his irises a surprisingly bright teal in its place. Then he lets out a cough that I almost believe is a chuckle. I want to believe it. "You need me to shoot and you trust me to watch your back…that's my job, and I won't fail. The rest is up to you."~_

 _~"I wouldn't have it any other way."~_

 _~I have never been able to decipher turian expressions, but I think his eyes are smiling. "Yeah. Me too, kid. Now get going. I've got you."~_

A metal-composite thud jolted Kolyat out of the memory. The blue-armored turian had moved to stand before the closed incinerator door, Widow rifle now resting on the floor. The others were gone.

"You said you'd make it up to me." The turian paused for a moment, leaning on his gun. "To them. You must have known you never could. But…I can't fault you for trying."

Kolyat stared. He knew that smoothly crackling voice. Who in the galaxy didn't? "You…you're…why are you here?"

The weight of the turian's stare, hidden by his helmet's dark visor, made Kolyat's scales itch. He should have recognized the armor immediately. He suddenly felt like a child again, a child who'd just failed a pointless assassination, stopped in the act by his father and two others. A human female, and a turian male.

Shepard and Vakarian.

He took a deep, scorching breath, forcing a composure he didn't feel. Vakarian, who clearly had history with Kolyat's nameless turian helper.

"You're Thane's son. The Wind of the Wards."

Kolyat shook his head. "It wasn't...I was only a small part of it."

The helmet seemed to consider that before nodding. Vakarian tilted his rifle toward the body in the incinerator. "You knew him." A statement, not a question.

 _I did. I won't forget._ "He was our eyes above. When Cerberus hit the hospital he was the first to join me, and he was the one who convinced the others to…" Kolyat trailed off.

Vakarian had leaned his rifle against the wall. A sigh fell from the turian, full of heavy things that Kolyat couldn't identify. "I see. Did he fight well?"

Kolyat turned to watch the flames. He was as terrified as the rest of us, but he didn't let it stop him. Not once. "I never could have done it without him. Any of it. He was as much the Wind as I was. We all were."

He expected Vakarian to respond, but the turian war hero said nothing, only turned back to the crematory. He must have decided that there was nothing more to say.

 _Kalahira, this one watched over me. Please help him find peace on the far shore._

They watched the gleaming metal door until the fire behind it died, leaving only ashes that were ejected into vacuum.


End file.
